# Elementary | Rice First

An episode of [ChinesePod - Beginner](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1489328856), 4 Mar 2026, 19 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/109bf914/podcast/play/116255650/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-2-2%2F201ac5e0-8b9e-decb-0dcd-30005b0c079a.mp3

Some foreigners think there's a conspiracy to deprive them of enjoying rice with their meal in China. In fact, it's just a Chinese custom which might seem strange to you. Here's a helpful tip: if you want to eat your rice with your meal, you can always ask them to bring out the rice first. Learn to do that in Chinese, with this lesson. Episode link: https://www.chinesepod.com/1627

## Transcript

[0:24] Hello, Chinese pie listeners. We're going to have a lot of
[0:26] rice today, and I'm Dilu. Hey, guys.
[0:29] I'm John. This is an elementary lesson.
[0:31] Yeah, not to be too stereotypical, but in China we
[0:34] do eat a lot of rice, don't we? So for rice, we say.
[0:40] Me fan in Chinese. Okay, me fan.
[0:43] And that's what tones. 3rd and 4th.
[0:46] Me fan, me fun. OK.
[0:48] And that's cooked rice, right? So what's the context here?
[0:51] OK, in this dialogue we have a guy and a girl.
[0:54] They're ordering food and they want their rice right away.
[1:00] But. Well, the butt will come later.
[1:01] We're going to explain the whole cultural context, but first the
[1:04] dialogue. 3 times. De Hua DPN hayashi Mama.
[1:16] Some good time. No.
[2:02] I. And.
[2:20] Now the translation. Hiyao Shamama.
[2:23] Would you like anything else? Hiyao Shamama.
[2:26] Would you like anything else? Hiyao shamama sangha Thai chabu
[2:33] dhola. Three dishes.
[2:36] That's about right. Sangha Thai chabu dhola.
[2:40] Three dishes. That's probably enough.
[2:48] Do you want to drink beer? Do you want to drink some?
[2:54] Beer I. Don't want to drink it.
[3:02] I'm starving. No, I'm starving.
[3:13] Na huye puhola Lai Liang Wan MI famba.
[3:17] Then I won't drink it either. We'll have two bowls of rice.
[3:22] Na huye puhola Lai Liang Wan MI famba.
[3:27] Then I won't drink any two bowls of rice.
[3:31] Na huye puhola Lai Liang Wan MI famba haute Ting Xiao Tong.
[3:38] OK, one moment please. Haute Ting Xiao Tong.
[3:43] OK, one moment please. Haute xin Xiao Tong fu yen xin
[3:49] xiang MI famba. Server serve the rice first.
[3:54] Fu yen xin xiang MI famba. Server bring out the rice first.
[3:59] Fu yen xin xiang MI famba haute. OK.
[4:04] Haute. Sure.
[4:07] OK, so buried within this dialogue are the experiences of
[4:10] many a foreigner in China. We're going to get into this
[4:14] sooner or later, but let's first look at the the words in the
[4:17] dialogue, starting with the first sentence, because the
[4:19] first sentence has a very interesting pattern in it.
[4:22] So it's the waitress, right? Yeah, what does she ask?
[4:24] Hi, yo Shamoma. Hi, yo, Shamoma.
[4:28] OK, now if you're an elementary learner, you might think there's
[4:30] something weird going on here because you may have learned.
[4:33] Then when you ask a question using what?
[4:35] Shama, then you don't need ma. When you ask a question with MA,
[4:40] it's a yes no question that you don't need what?
[4:43] So what's happening here? Yeah, they're both in the
[4:45] sentence. So let's first break it down.
[4:48] Start simple and build it up. How so?
[4:51] The core question is. Yao shama, Yao Shama.
[4:56] So want what? What do you want now?
[4:59] If you add a high then it becomes.
[5:03] Hiyao shama. Hiyao, Shama.
[5:06] So this hi adds the meaning of what else, right?
[5:10] What else do you want? So what does this ma add?
[5:14] Well, like I said, MA is for yes, no questions.
[5:17] And when you add the MA it does become a yes no question.
[5:20] But what happens is the shama kind of changes in meaning.
[5:24] So when you add the MA, you get. Hiyao Shama, ma hiyao Shamama.
[5:29] So it becomes would you like anything else?
[5:33] So would you like anything else? That's a yes, no question.
[5:36] The Shamma goes from what to being anything, right?
[5:40] Yes. So would you like anything else
[5:43] is. Hiyao Shamama.
[5:46] Hiyao Shamama. So this guy didn't answer
[5:49] directly. He didn't say yes or no.
[5:52] Yeah, what did he say? He says.
[5:54] Some goods. Hi, Cha Pudola.
[5:56] So he's kind of assessing the situation.
[5:59] So first he notices they that they have already ordered three
[6:02] dishes, right? Duai sanga Thai.
[6:05] Sanga Thai. OK, three dishes.
[6:08] The word for dish is. Thai Thai decision.
[6:13] And literally we know this cater means vegetables.
[6:16] Right. But in this context, at a
[6:18] restaurant, it means a dish. OK, so three dishes and then.
[6:22] Cha pudola, Cha pudola. OK, so cha pudola is a phrase
[6:27] which means more or less. Or it's about right.
[6:31] Yeah, roughly. So this LA is kind of like now.
[6:36] It's roughly about right. It still kind of doesn't.
[6:41] Make sense to me because there's a word missing, which is enough.
[6:46] So what he's saying is that's roughly enough.
[6:49] Or it's about right. Yeah, three dishes is about
[6:52] right for the two of us. So does it mean no?
[6:55] Yeah, indirectly he's telling the waitress no, we don't need
[6:58] anything else. But she offered something else,
[7:02] right? Yeah, what did she say?
[7:03] She says Yahoo. Pijo ma.
[7:06] Yahoo Pijo ma. OK, do you want to drink beer
[7:10] and what are the tones on beer? Pijo.
[7:16] OK, second and third and the girl doesn't want to drink it
[7:20] right? What did she say all?
[7:26] Right, I don't want to drink. Because.
[7:33] OK, so the word 4th tone, that's the letter E, right?
[7:38] It means hungry. But she's not just hungry, she's
[7:41] starving, right? Because she says.
[7:47] OK, so this slut intensifies that adjective hungry.
[7:51] Right. So not just hungry, but starving
[7:53] it is. All.
[7:57] Right, that's third tone and the love is neutral.
[7:59] Right. OK, so anyway, if the girl's not
[8:02] going to drink, then the guy says.
[8:07] Nah. OK, so Nah.
[8:10] So then in that case I also not drink.
[8:16] That sounds weird in English. So I'm not going to drink beer
[8:20] either. Do it.
[8:21] We dropped the beer because we know what.
[8:24] We're talking about. Now the question is, what is the
[8:27] LA doing here right? So this guy was going to have
[8:30] some beer, but the girl said I'm not going to drink.
[8:34] So he changed his mind. OK, so the law is signaling this
[8:39] change, right? Originally he was going to her,
[8:42] then he decided to Boo her, and then the law tells us it's a
[8:46] change. Exactly.
[8:52] Then I won't drink either. OK, so then he says.
[8:56] Lie Liang Wan MI fenba. Lie Liang Wan MI fenba.
[9:01] The verb at the beginning of that sentence is.
[9:04] Lie Lai LAIE arshun. OK, second tone.
[9:09] That means to come, right? But in the context of ordering
[9:12] food, Lai has sort of a special meaning.
[9:15] It's more like to bring. Yeah.
[9:18] Or when we order in English, we often say I'll have, if you
[9:21] really think about it, I will have as kind of a weird thing to
[9:24] say, like I'm predicting the future, I'm going to have some
[9:29] food in front of me. So that's a hint to you to bring
[9:32] it out. Set for you, but in Chinese we
[9:37] say. Lie, lie all.
[9:39] Right. Just remember, that's the verb
[9:41] you use when you're ordering food.
[9:43] So lie. What?
[9:45] Liang Wan MI fun. Liang Wan MI fun.
[9:49] Liang Wan so 2 bowls. This is a measure word which is
[9:53] really easy to understand because we say the same thing in
[9:55] English. So the word for bowl is. 11. 3rd
[10:00] tone all. Right third tone and two bowls
[10:03] of rice is. Leon Wan MI fan.
[10:06] Leon Wan, MI fan. I remember MI fan 3rd and 4th
[10:11] tone. So bring out two bowls of rice.
[10:14] We'll have two bowls of rice. Lai Leon Wan MI fan Lai Leon Wan
[10:19] MI. Fan OK, but in the dialogue he
[10:21] adds a BA right? So what does the BA at the end
[10:24] do? What do you think?
[10:26] Is it a suggestion? How about bringing us 2 bowls of
[10:29] rice? No, it is.
[10:32] Not. I think it's more like soften
[10:34] the tone here. Oh OK, because it's a command.
[10:37] We had a bot and the command is not so harsh, it's softer.
[10:40] Shoulda shoulda. OK, got it.
[10:43] So the the waitress is fine with that?
[10:45] What did she say? Pashua hauta Ting xiaodong hauta
[10:50] Ting xiaodong all. Right.
[10:51] So here we have a set phrase that you frequently hear from
[10:54] people in the service industry. It means Please wait a moment,
[10:58] right? Shoulda Qing Xiao Tong Qing Xiao
[11:02] Tong all? Right, so Qing, that's the
[11:04] please third tone, right? And.
[11:07] Then the wait a moment. Xiao Tong, Xiao Tong.
[11:12] So that's SHAO first tone and then Dong is Deng third tone,
[11:18] right? Xiao Tang, Xiao Tang All.
[11:24] Right. And now here's the key part, the
[11:27] one that's really useful for US foreigners.
[11:29] What does the guy say to the waitress last?
[11:31] Fu yen xin shang MI Fen BA. Xin shang MI Fen BA.
[11:37] OK, again we have the BA softening the tone of the order,
[11:40] but but the important part is in the beginning, right?
[11:43] What is it? You mean Xin Shang?
[11:45] Right. So xin meaning first you know
[11:49] before you do other things, and then the verb there is.
[11:53] Shang shung SHANG Forstone. OK, Shung, this verb in the
[12:00] context of a restaurant, means to bring out the food, to serve
[12:04] the food, put it on the table for you.
[12:08] All right, so xian shung means first serve, and then in this
[12:12] case we're talking about rice. Yes.
[12:14] Right now you might be thinking, why does he say that?
[12:18] Why does he even need to say that?
[12:20] And the reason is because in Chinese restaurants in China,
[12:24] there's a tradition where the rice comes out after all the
[12:28] other dishes come out. Oh, I understand what you're
[12:30] talking about. So earlier I'm like, what are
[12:33] you talking about? This is absolutely normal.
[12:36] Well, it's funny because a lot of foreigners think all the
[12:39] service in this restaurant is so bad.
[12:40] They haven't brought out our rice yet.
[12:42] But that's just the way it works in China.
[12:44] You bring out the cold dishes first, then the hot dishes, and
[12:48] then last comes the rice. And foreigners usually want
[12:52] their rice with the dishes. So if that's what you want, you
[12:55] need to tell them right in the beginning.
[12:57] Tell them. Shen xiong MI fan sheng xiang MI
[13:01] fan BA. Yeah.
[13:02] So that phrase will be very useful to you if you live in
[13:04] China and you want to eat your rice with your meal.
[13:08] All right, let's listen to the dialogues 3 more times.
[13:10] Here we go. Welcome back to another
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[13:26] colonoscopy, C the HSK test, or D the CAT scan?
[13:31] The CAT scan. Oh, sorry, that is incorrect.
[13:35] The correct answer is C, the HSK test.
[13:38] That's right, Chinese Pod will thoroughly prepare you to pass
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[13:43] chinesepod.com. Forward slash HSK.
[14:16] The RPN. Hi.
[15:04] OK, so remember, without that magical request, you're probably
[15:07] going to be getting your rice last.
[15:10] OK. So you need to say.
[15:12] Xiang MI fan fu yen, xiang MI fan BA all.
[15:16] Right, let me just ask for clarification.
[15:19] Shang MI fan means serve the rice.
[15:21] Can I say shang MI fan Xiang serve the rice first?
[15:26] No, you cannot say that sounds weird.
[15:28] So the word order is xian comes first, right?
[15:31] Sure that should. That.
[15:32] That should be easy to remember. Xian means 1st and it comes
[15:35] first. Oh.
[15:36] Smart, smart to you. OK, so as we pointed out in this
[15:40] lesson, there's some potential for misunderstanding.
[15:43] It's not that the restaurant has bad service.
[15:45] No, it's just a tradition. In China, the rice comes less.
[15:48] Is there a reason for that? Well personally I think it's
[15:52] more like take time to enjoy the food.
[15:54] So after they, you know, talk and drink for two hours, they
[15:57] may want some rice to fill up their stomach.
[16:00] Maybe they've burnt off some calories after talking for two.
[16:03] Hours maybe. Maybe.
[16:04] Is it also because the Thai is pretty expensive so you want to
[16:09] eat that and the rice is cheap so you eat the rice as kind of a
[16:13] backup to fill up your stomach? Maybe in the old times, but
[16:17] nowadays those dishes are not that expensive.
[16:21] OK now what about the beer? Is there anything special going
[16:25] on with the beer? I was once really perplexed by
[16:28] someone asking me Nyahuh pijo haishu MI fan.
[16:34] I was like what do I want to drink beer or eat rice?
[16:37] Why is that a like a either or question?
[16:41] Oh, I know what you're talking about.
[16:43] Because this girl in the dialogue, she's like.
[16:45] Oh PU shanghu pijo. Right.
[16:50] Right. Is this the logic that's you you
[16:52] don't understand? Well, it kind of sounds like
[16:54] beer and rice are in the same category for some reason.
[16:59] Well, I think it makes sense when you know, when people are
[17:01] super hungry, they just don't want to spend like one hour
[17:04] talking and drinking beer. They just want to eat.
[17:08] OK, but is there this idea that beer will fill you up like rice
[17:11] will? I don't think so.
[17:13] Why do you think that makes sense?
[17:14] Maybe some people think in that way.
[17:17] OK, is it also related to the idea that if your stomach is
[17:20] empty then drinking beer will get you drunk too fast?
[17:24] Theoretically it is. But she's just hungry.
[17:28] OK, so we won't look into this too deeply.
[17:30] Maybe there's nothing else there.
[17:32] But one other thing that we want to talk about are two very
[17:34] important verbs that you use in a restaurant, right?
[17:38] Oh, you're talking about Lai and Shung Shuma?
[17:41] Right. So these are two very common
[17:43] verbs that take on special meanings in the context of a
[17:46] restaurant. So the question is, are these
[17:49] kind of the same thing or are they different?
[17:52] They're slightly different. Maybe you will say the same
[17:55] thing in English, like to serve or to bring, but when we are
[18:00] ordering food, mostly we're using.
[18:03] Lai. OK, the person ordering says
[18:05] Lai. Like in the dialogue you say?
[18:08] Lai Liang Wan MI fan all. Right.
[18:10] So I'll have two bowls of rice, We'll have two bowls of rice.
[18:13] Shoot that and then shung is for the the server to bring it out.
[18:17] Yes, when it's done cooking and it's right there.
[18:20] So you just want them to bring it over?
[18:22] They serve the food that is shung.
[18:25] Shung MI fan, Shung MI fan. And you can also say Shangtai.
[18:29] Right. Serve the food.
[18:31] Or Shangtio. Serve the alcohol.
[18:35] OK. All right.
[18:35] I think we've pretty much covered everything.
[18:37] If you have any other questions though, please come to
[18:39] chinesepod.com and ask us. OK, we'll see you there.
[18:42] Thank you. As usual, Chinese Pod provides
[18:47] an extensive selection of learning materials for this
[18:50] lesson on its website, www.chinesepod.com.
[18:54] You can access this lesson directly with the lesson #1.
[18:57] 627. So just go to
[19:00] www.chinesepod.com/one. 627. And you will find a transcript,
[19:07] vocabulary and much more. The link again
[19:10] www.chinesepod.com slash. 1627.

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